Author name: Swaraj Paul Barooah

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Guest Post: gTLD fun .sucks me not

/ By / Others

We’re happy to bring our readers a very interesting guest post by Santosh Vikram Singh on what could turn out to be a huge cyber-squatting issue – it turns out that there is a recently launched gTLD (such as “.com”, or “.org”, etc) which may be uniquely situated to bring together criticism/trolling over any topic, company or person! A fascinating issue which may be especially relevant to big brands and celebrities of all varieties, do read on for more. Santosh is a […]

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US, Switzerland take out WTO gun for India’s Sec 3(d); point at foot

/ By / Patent

In yet another “Indian Pharma Patent Policy” centric international development, an article from LiveMint (view here), reports that India’s Section 3(d) may be facing pressure from a relatively unexplored angle. According to the article, US and Switzerland may be coming up with a creative approach to bring India to the WTO dispute settlement system. Up till now, despite all the pressure by US, India’s pharmaceutical patent provisions had not been challenged at the WTO arena, presumably because any such challenge would be a

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Innovation, Progress, Ambition and Censorship

/ By / Innovation, Others, Patent

I recently came across two very interesting articles, the ideas of which our policy makers would do well to keep in mind. The first, a broadly focused piece, titled “Between Innovation and Progress“ is a response by Prof Siva Vaidhyanathan (Univ of Virginia) to the interestingly poised question “Has “innovation” supplanted the idea of progress?“. The second piece, more specific to India, is the opening editorial in the “Science in India” special issue of the highly respected “Nature” science journal, titled

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I-MAK takes on Sovaldi patents around the world

/ By / Drug Regulation, Patent

The Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK), along with various other local organizations, has launched challenges on Gilead’s patent applications for it’s Hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) in 5 countries – Argentina, Brazil, China, Russia and Ukraine. These 5 countries together account for about 30%-40% of the Hepatitis C patients in the world (about 40 – 60 million out of an estimated 150 million to 185 million patients across the world). However, for reasons best known to Gilead, these 5 countries

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“King Copyright” has no place in a Democracy

/ By / Copyright

A few weeks ago, the Centre for Internet and Society and the Observer Research Foundation organized a conference focusing on “Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age” in association with the Internet Policy Observatory of the Center for Global Communication Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. For their panel on “Balancing Freedom of Expression and other digital rights”, I was invited to discuss Copyrights in this context. While I wasn’t able to make it to the Conference, I did send in a

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National IPR Policy – Who Makes it in India?!

/ By / Innovation, Others, Overlaps in IP, Patent

[Long post ahead. But it mostly consists of a timeline of events regarding formation of / comments on Indian IP policy over the last 9 months – a timeline that paints a very worrying picture!]. [Editor’s note: Minor additions have been made to the timeline based on comments received – 6/5/2015] Last week, in an email Shamnad sent to our subscribers, as well as in my post “Modi shames India, calls patent laws under-developed“, we noted how Modi’s referral to

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Modi shames India, calls patent laws under-developed

/ By / Innovation, Patent

In a stark volte-face from decades of where the Indian government has stood on its patent laws, the Indian Prime Minister recently issued some worrying lines, with very worrisome public-health implications. As per Business Standard, “Though he spoke in Hindi, what he said was to the effect that “India must also work on intellectual property rights guidelines to match global standards.“” LiveMint reports further – that while speaking at the Commerce Ministry’s first Global Exhibition on Services, Modi said,  “If we don’t work towards bringing our

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Faith (in IP) be damned! (But Happy World IP Day!)

/ By / Innovation, Others, Privacy

Thanks to the social media turn of more and more academics, I recently came across a new essay by Prof Mark Lemley, one of the most prolific IP personalities around today, focusing specifically on an issue we’ve noted as problematic for years on the blog now – the conflict between “Faith” and “Fact” based IP. From World IP Day in 2008 (“Faith based IP to Fact based IP“), to a post just a couple of months ago (“Dodgy IP Dogma“) –

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Tidbit: Job Opportunity at International Trademark Association

/ By / Sponsored, Trademark

We’d like to remind our readers of this job opportunity at INTA. Please note, the deadline to apply is Today – April 22nd, 2015. Read on for more: An exciting opportunity has opened up at the International Trademark Association (INTA). The role is for an India Consultant, to be based out of New Delhi.  The Consultant is expected to provide consultancy services to INTA; specifically assist in strengthening INTA’s presence in the country by supporting policy efforts throughout the region; growing

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SJM, Sangh Parivar’s economic wing, raises concerns with draft IPR Policy

/ By / Others

In a very notable development, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), an economic wing of the Sangh Parivar, has raised serious concerns with the draft IPR Policy including concerns over its constituent members. Before I mention what the concerns were, I’ll put forward some background to place these comments in context: The Sangh Parivar is a group of Hindu nationalist organizations (which include the ruling party BJP) that have been founded/inspired by members/ideas of the RSS. While these different organizations within the

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